Mobile communication devices may use Universal Integrated Circuit Cards (UICCs), also referred to as subscriber identity modules (SIMs), to authenticate themselves to a wireless carrier network in order to receive communication services from the wireless carrier network. A UICC may be an integrated circuit chip that stores information which uniquely identifies the UICC, as well as information for accessing the wireless carrier network. Such information may include an integrated circuit card identifier (ICCID), an international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) number, security authentication information, an operator profile that enables the UICC to authenticate with the wireless carrier network, as well as other information. A UICC may also store an applet that may be executed by an onboard processor of the UICC to perform a specific task independently of the data processing capabilities of the mobile communication device.
In some instances, a UICC may need to be updated after the UICC has been installed in a mobile communication device. For example, a wireless carrier network may desire to push a modified operator profile to the UICC. In another example, an applet that is stored in the UICC may become obsolete, so that the wireless carrier network may desire to install a new version of the applet onto the UICC. Remote updates to a UICC may be accomplished using short message service (SMS) messages. During an update, a wireless carrier network may send an update to the UICC that is installed in a mobile communication device via a SMS message, or via a series of SMS messages. However, because each SMS message has a relatively small maximum message size limit, the transfer of large updates to the UICC via multiple SMS message is highly susceptible to communication errors. For example, a SMS message generally has a maximum size of approximately 125 bytes. Thus, it may take hundreds or even thousands of SMS messages to send a large UICC update in the kilobyte range to the UICC. Further, a failure of the mobile communication device to receive even one of these SMS messages may result in an incomplete UICC update to the UICC. This means that the wireless carrier network has to resend the UICC update for the UICC in its entirety to the mobile communication device.